At home or away? An exploration of policy and practice in the placement of disabled children at residential schools

Despite increasing policy commitment by government to the inclusion of children with special educational needs in mainstream services, significant numbers of disabled children continue to be placed away from their family home and community in residential schools. Reliable statistical information on them is elusive and there has been a dearth of research on how placement decisions are made and what the experience of such placements for disabled children and their families is like. This article reports on the policies and practice of 21 education and social service authorities in England in this area, the patterns of residential placements and the apparent reasons for them. It also highlights points of concern in relation to the protection and promotion of the welfare of disabled children in residential schools, and the apparent lack of clarity on the part of local authorities with regard to their duties in this area. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Comparing Father and Mother Reports of Father Involvement Among Low‐Income Minority Families

Currently available data and concerns about the validity of reports by mothers significantly truncate the ability of researchers to address a myriad of research questions concerning the involvement of fathers in families. This study aimed to inform this concern by examining predictors of father involvement and father‐mother discrepancies in reports of involvement within a low‐income, predominantly minority sample of families with both resident and nonresident fathers (n= 228). Paired hierarchical linear models were used to control for the interrelation between pairs of reporters. The results indicate that although fathers' and mothers' reports are similar, mothers consistently report lower levels of involvement than do fathers. Parental conflict, fathers' nonresidence, and fathers' age, as well as mothers' education and employment, predicted larger discrepancies between fathers' and mothers' reports.     

Temperamental Vulnerability and Negative Parenting as Interacting Predictors of Child Adjustment

This study examines parenting by temperament interactions in predicting child adjustment. Participants included 40 first and second graders, their mothers, and teachers. Child report of maternal psychological control and hostility was assessed using the Child Puppet Interview. Mothers completed temperament scales from the Child Behavior Questionnaire, and teachers provided information on child adjustment. As expected, among children high in irritable distress, maternal psychological control was associated with internalizing problems and maternal hostility was associated with externalizing problems. Among children with poor effortful control, maternal hostility was associated with externalizing behavior. This study offers evidence that the effects of negative parenting are accentuated among children with temperamental vulnerabilities.     

INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL SOURCES OF ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE: Corporate Form and the Banking Industry

How do internal and external constraints impact the likelihood that organizations enact organizational change? Resource dependence theory argues that organizational change is a response to internal and external constraints. However, the interaction of these constraints remains theoretically and empirically underconsidered. Using longitudinal data from the U.S. banking industry, I examine this question from a resource dependence perspective and I also incorporate explanations from transaction cost economics, organizational ecology, and institutional theoretical perspectives. I find that external constraints limit the impact of internal constraints on organizational change. I explore how this finding fits within resource dependence theory.     

From Fragmentation to Comprehensiveness in Network Governance

Public networks are increasingly implemented at different government levels and across policy areas to increase coordination of services, decision-making and services delivery. Network governance is one promising theoretical perspective through which networks have been studied by different scholars and schools of thought. However, the literature on network governance is still fragmented, sectorial and issues-based. An overarching framework for the comprehensive analysis of the accumulate knowledge is missing. To address this limitation, we propose a comprehensive framework for analyzing the development of the findings in the field. The framework includes four building blocks that reflect the main issues debated in literature: the conditions affecting the choice of a mode of network governance, the modes of network governance, the dimensions of meta-governance and the outcome evaluation. The framework would support academics and policy makers who deal with network governance in different policy domains. The article concludes with a discussion of the proposed framework and its applications in future research.     

The Relationship Between Maternal Education and Children's Academic Outcomes: A Theoretical Framework

The importance of maternal education for children's academic outcomes is widely recognized, and yet the multiple potential mechanisms that explain this relationship are underexplored. The authors integrate theories of human, cultural, and social capital with 2 developmental psychology theories—bioecological theory and developmental niche theory—to draw attention to how maternal education may influence children's academic outcomes through a range of parenting mechanisms, some of which have been largely neglected in research. This framework provides a more complete picture of how maternal education shapes proximal and distal influences on children's academic outcomes and the ways in which these mechanisms interact and reinforce one another across time and context. The implications of this framework for future family research are then discussed.     

Does Japan Still Matter? Past Tendencies and Future Opportunities in the Study of Japanese Firms

This paper engages with the question ‘does Japan still matter’ by systematically reviewing publication patterns in peer‐reviewed academic journal articles addressing Japanese firms and their management practices, illustrating the academic discourse surrounding Japanese firms over four decades, and by identifying future research opportunities. Initially, particularly from the 1980s when Japanese firms came to prominence, these practices tended to be identified as ‘best practice’. However, at least in part due to socio‐economic changes, this tendency has become less prominent since the ‘bubble economy’ burst. Instead, three broader developments are observed: the examination of the continuity and change in the traditional Japanese model, a more complex approach that involves multiple themes of research, and leveraging new contexts to examine Japanese firms, including the long‐term recession, the rise of the East Asian economy, and the increasing importance of corporate social responsibility.     

The analysis of incontinence episodes and other count data in patients with overactive bladder by Poisson and negative binomial regression

Clinical studies in overactive bladder have traditionally used analysis of covariance or nonparametric methods to analyse the number of incontinence episodes and other count data. It is known that if the underlying distributional assumptions of a particular parametric method do not hold, an alternative parametric method may be more efficient than a nonparametric one, which makes no assumptions regarding the underlying distribution of the data. Therefore, there are advantages in using methods based on the Poisson distribution or extensions of that method, which incorporate specific features that provide a modelling framework for count data. One challenge with count data is overdispersion, but methods are available that can account for this through the introduction of random effect terms in the modelling, and it is this modelling framework that leads to the negative binomial distribution. These models can also provide clinicians with a clearer and more appropriate interpretation of treatment effects in terms of rate ratios. In this paper, the previously used parametric and non‐parametric approaches are contrasted with those based on Poisson regression and various extensions in trials evaluating solifenacin and mirabegron in patients with overactive bladder. In these applications, negative binomial models are seen to fit the data well. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.